It's common sense!

Common sense issues are relegated by all kinds of factors.  In some parts of the country you would be exercising common sense stopping for road kill if the kill was recent.  While that may be true of one part of the population, it's not necessarily true for all.  In Arizona there is on Route 66 a place named The Roadkill Cafe.  Common sense dictates our doing one thing and not doing another.  The greater the degree of risk; the less common sense comes into play.  For me bungee cord jumping off bridges is not only way past common sense but insane!  Kind of like eating road kill.  But then I digress.  Common sense says eat this and don't eat that.  Common sense says think before you talk and then sometimes don't talk.  Common sense says that we are sane by someones standards.  When my son Benjamen was 4 years old we were watching a show when he suddenly said to me, "Know what I want to do when I grow up?"  I asked him to tell me.  He said, "Everything!"  He's about to graduate high school next year and has plans in place that allow him to do just that.  Historical common sense would have had me urging him to choose a life path and then going in that direction.  My urging him to "do everything" is outside what some would call common sense.  Not only is common sense different in the various parts of the country; it's also different amongst different people groups.  Common sense means taking care of your health, avoiding stress and having balance between your time off and work time.  It would follow that less we engage in stress related activities the more common sense we have.  Not necessarily true.  If there weren't people who risked greatly we would be without so many of the inventions and concepts that were birth out of labors of love and what most people would have termed a lack of common sense.  Man cannot fly!  Watch this key on the string of my kite in this storm!  Horseless carriages?  Who ever heard of such a thing?  Are we much different today?  Generations have standard common sense beliefs that they try to pass onto their next generation.  Sometimes it takes and sometimes it doesn't.  We often hear about common sense when there is something negative.  "If he had used common sense God gave a mule he would be alive."  Interesting point.  "It's just plain common sense to do it this way."  "He didn't have a lick of common sense."  So, what does constitute common sense?  What makes this one common sense and that one not?  Just when you get a grip on what common sense is the world changes the definition.  It was alleged common sense that sparked the Salem witch deaths.  It was common sense that we pass this law or that law to bring about the equality that eventually took away a freedom.  I had a friend who told me that "The more things change the more they stay the same."  Sounds like common sense.  Status quo doesn't mean we exercise common sense.  It's a common sense way of not rocking the boat.  What does God have to say about common sense?  The Bible has so many Scriptures about common sense that I couldn't list them here if I had all day!  What we need is a middle ground that guides us to use common sense in all of our life.  Common sense has to be birthed somewhere.  What is the etiology (study of first things or causes)?  When Jesus was asked about the law of God he answered that there were only two laws.  Under these two laws of common sense all of life would take shape in a positive and encouraging way.  With the two laws as part of our individual and corporate lives living would be better.  What was Jesus talking about?  Jesus said that we needed to exercise only two common sense issues.  First, we are to love God.  Secondly, we are to love one another.  That's it.  When we accomplish these two all that we do is Godly common sense.  You see, if I use these two commands in my life, I will automatically be using common sense that God gave to us.  Even if we are stubborn as a mule, we can exercise this common sense.  When we focus on the goal rather than the journey, the journey takes place anyway.  Why not have God, with his commons sense, direct our lives?  It's common sense.